This assignment was to use lines to create the outline of a shape. This is called a "spline", as I understand it. Once the basic shape is made 3DS Max lets you raise that shape up from 2D into 3D almost like magic. It's like magic if you already know how to do it. I decided to flesh out the logo my fiancee and I are thinking about for our wedding next winter. We wanted an intertwined V and A representing each of our last names (she'll be keeping hers). Here's the basic pencil sketch;
Not too bad, I think. Then the "fun" began. I started this assignment the night before, thinking it would be easier than the first. Nope! This was another miserable exercise in frustration. The first obstacle was the fact that I couldn't quite figure out how to get the image into 3DS Max, to put it onto a "reference plane" so I could trace over it with the 3D tools. At first I couldn't even get the program to see the drawing at all. I saved it as a GIF, JPG, and PNG in my attempt to open the image in 3DS Max. Eventually, I found the passage in my notes that said to open it with the Materials Editor, choose the image as a bitmap and put that bitmap onto the flat plane I created for it. Simple, right? Then the real fight began.
After several false starts, and struggles to get the program to do... *anything* I wanted it to, I managed to hack out the letter "A". I then copied the "A", turned it upside down and backward, and removed the vertices for the crosspiece of the "A" to get the letter "V". I lengthened the upper right arm of the "V" to get a nice swoop. I tweaked the two letters and placed them one atop the other. I then "raised" them up from flat 2D shapes into 3D letters. I tilted each letter, one to the right and one to the left, to make them look intertwined. I then picked a font that looked similar to the logo (Harrington) and typed out her name horizontally. I wanted my name vertically, but this program won't do that. I had to create seven separate letters and arrange them into a vertical pattern. Same with the date.
The assignment called for beveling the logo. The letters were too thin to make that work, so I chose to bevel the top of the logo itself. What a mess!!! It took me over an hour to figure out how to even do that. There's no simple "Bevel" tool in the Modify panel. None! I eventually right clicked on one of the logo letters and converted it to an editable mesh. I then selected the entire thing as an Element. I changed the selection to Face and got the top face of the letter. I then changed the selection to Polygon to get the bevel tool. I moved the tool's slider to get a decent angle. I repeated the process with the other letter. That's when I noticed the points on the letters were all messed up as the bevel had the faces crossing and... I dunno, screwing up. I removed verteices from the train-wrecks on the ends of the letters one-by-one. This left gaping holes in the shape. Solving one problem created another! I went online to try and find a solution. One solution was to go to "Modify" in the toolbar, then to "Mesh Editing", then to "Cap Holes. This left me with freaky shaped "caps". More problems. Another hour of fighting and I eventually found out how to create faces. I painstakingly closed each hole in an imperfect but acceptable (by this point) way. I created each facet of the pointy shape by hand. I then tried to tweak an unsatisfactory shape to a couple of the lines of the letter. Vertex by vertex, face by face, I massaged the logo into a more fluid shape. Another hour or so. Then came the fight with the material editor. I wanted a metal look to the logo, like silver or chrome. I had to settle for an odd painted look. Online help and the quickstart guide are really of limited utility with 3DS Max. I finally surrendered sometime after 6am and started writing this blog entry. The "easier" project took almost 10 hours. I'm now going to crawl to bed for a few hours of sleep before class. My sweetie and I have a date after I get back from class, so this is going to be a long-ish day.
At least there will be wine and cake at the end of all of it. And the cake is not a lie.
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